Foreigners in Poland in numbers

How many foreigners live in Poland

The broadest measure is the GUS (Statistics Poland) estimate: about 2.3 million foreigners at the end of 2025, including 73% Ukrainian citizens. It is a statistical estimate, not a number from a single register. You will find our other compilations – on the exam and on citizenship – in the overview of our reports.

According to this source, the number of people with UKR status fell after 1 September 2026.

Foreigners insured with ZUS – by country

ZUS data show who works legally in Poland and pays contributions. Ukrainian citizens are the decisive majority, but the number of people from Colombia is growing fastest.

Calculation by the editorial team: Ukrainian citizens are about 67% of foreigners insured with ZUS, and Belarusian citizens about 11%.

Residence permits

According to data from the Office for Foreigners, as at 25 April 2026 about 2 million residence permits and temporary protection statuses were valid. The largest groups are shown in the table.

Students and pupils from abroad

In the 2025/26 academic year, 97,950 foreigners studied at Polish universities. The source notes a fall of 7.1 thousand and links it to the tightening of visa rules from 1 July 2025. In the 2025/26 school year, about 246 thousand foreign pupils attended schools.

What this means for learners of Polish

This is our interpretation – the numbers do not say how many people know Polish or at what level. They do show, however, in which situations the Polish language becomes necessary.

• Most foreigners in Poland are citizens of Ukraine and Belarus. For people who speak Ukrainian or Russian, the biggest challenge is not understanding but accuracy: false friends, accent and endings. We write about this in our guides for people who speak Ukrainian and Russian.
• The group of people from outside Slavic countries is growing. The growth in the number of insured people from Colombia shows that more and more people are starting Polish from zero, with no similarities to their native language. In Pol-Langua lessons the explanations can be in English or Spanish.
• Permanent residence does not require a certificate, EU long-term resident status does. A permanent residence permit has no language requirement, whereas a permit for EU long-term resident residence requires confirmed knowledge of Polish at least at level B1. See which language document is enough for EU long-term residence.
• Studies in Polish require at least B2. From 1 July 2025, the university sets the level of knowledge of Polish, no lower than B2.

If your situation requires a certificate, at a trial lesson we will check how far you are from the required level.

Methodology

The report is based on public data, as at 3 October 2026. For each number we give the date it refers to and the institution it comes from; some of the data we know from press publications citing these institutions – we indicate them in the sources. We do not add up the indicators, because they come from different registers and have different dates: GUS estimates the number of residents, ZUS counts the insured, and UdSC – valid permits and statuses. Percentage shares marked as a calculation by the editorial team were calculated from source numbers.